Paul Morley talks to the record producer and former judge on Pop Idol and Pop Star: The Rivals about his love of pop music and why he doesn't begrudge Simon Cowell anything
my respect for pete waterman holds no bounds! also put pete in charge of the railways in the uk and we would have an half descent transport network. i heard him talk on lots of radio station on the matter and he talks a hell of a lot of sense.
I was a young boy when Pete was doing the rounds, I was about 10 when Rick Astley came out and he was the first artist I ever liked and still like even to this day so much so I saw him live the other night in Bournemouth/UK, the thing about Pete is he know's what he's talking about and is very passionate about what he created and he did all this with pocket change, the stars that Pete created are still big names to day, so much pop crap is thrown around these days that it's not worth following
there is such a thing as too successful, Music is all about pop now , I long for the days of punks skins rastas rude boys casuals new romantics soul boys psychobillys rockers etc etc etc etc but alas I feel its gone too far & music is destined to stay in this samey homogenized one size fits all, Thanks god for my Vinyl collection!
Right now 97% of Pop music are forgettable. As for Simon, the problem is that his music doesn't have great songwriting & production. When songs from say The Jackson 5 or Backstreet Boys first came out when it was new, not only it reach the kids but also the adults because the song is that good. You can't say the same with One Direction. And why Simon haven't found new songs for Susan Boyle, Ill Divo or Paul Potts to sing? Instead looking for the next Bacharach, his artists do covers. That's lazy
if i could have dinner with anyone in showbiz, believe it or not, i would want to have dinner with Pete Waterman..I find this man fascinating..and brilliant... he totally interests me..
He was brilliant at what he did, but nothing he did was brilliant....far from it (Road Block was OK) but he was in the business of bubblegum pop, not art. He comes across as quite honest and makes no excuses for his crimes against music. Personally I think he did a lot less damage to the music industry in the 80's and 90's than Cowell has done in the last 20 years. Can't stand Cowell but quite like Pete and his amazing train set..
A reasonable point of view but I think some of the pop songs put out by SAW are very underrated. "The Harder I Try", "This Time I Know It's For Real", "Happenin' All Over Again" and several others are top notch pop songs. Sure, there was plenty of stuff that was far from stellar too but they didn't care as long as it sold well. e.g. I have no idea how "You'll Never Stop Me From Loving You" ever got to no. 1. I think it's one of their worst tracks. But the record buying public back then snapped up anything by SAW in droves. Even the dreadful "I'd Rather Jack" got to no. 7 or something. So yeah, I agree with you to a certain extent and they did have a fair amount of far from brilliant garbage...but SAW also had some very, very good stuff indeed. Props for mentioning "Roadblock". Deserved to get higher than no. 13 in the charts.
Waterman is just a manager - he never touches the keyboard, because he is talentless, as a hitmaker. Matt Aitken and Mike Stock makes the pop micracle possible.
Waterman does have a point about "Pop Idol/"American Idol". I don't watch the show but when voters gave Philip Philips the title for "American Idol" over two talented singers, it shows people that people pick a guy who think is cute who has mediocre talent over real talent, then you can see why the music business is barely alive. Let's just say if Adele went on Idol, she would had got voted off the show over a singer that's good looking but crappy singer & win over the girls and that counts?
Yeah but come on pete 9 till 8 with 45m for lunch sat watching the hopefuls. Its hardly min wage on £8.50 an hour I bet......psid for a few of your trains.
He didn't destroy it. He found a new level of previously unmarketable mediocrity, and made it marketable. Pop music and the underground are still doing ok and probably always will. Cowell is another genre entirely, and is thankfully irrelevant to 80% of the population. "Ooooh, X-factor got almost 10 million viewers in the UK last week!" Yeah, and 60 million plus people live there. I'm with the 50 million plus, who are probably fairly interesting and difficult to flannel. God bless the 80% :)
Pete's great entertainment but you can't trust a word out of his mouth, he's from the classic bluff, loud, overexaggerating, economical with the truth but big on the soundbites tradition of pop managers, from Simon Napier-Bell to Tom Watkins and Nigel Martin-Smith. If you took him at face value, he'd have you believe he invented acid house, northern soul, dub mixing and the 12" record.
